By Md Aynal Haque

RAJSHAHI, Oct 10, 2022 (BSS) - A total of 5,915 youths were imparted skill development training for making them self-reliant in the district last fiscal year.
 
"We have arranged institutional and non-institutional training for them on nine income-generating trades during the last 2021-2022 financial year," said Golam Mahbub, Deputy Director of the Department of Youth Development (DYD).

Nasima Khatun, a resident of Bhadra area in the city, got training from the DYD, and started block and boutique business on a small-scale in 2015.
 
Around 1,000 women coming from poor and underprivileged families now got employment in Nasima's Block and Boutique House.
 
Nasima, the mother of three daughters, is now a successful entrepreneur in Rajshahi city.
 
She said many underprivileged and distressed women have become self-reliant working in boutique houses in the metropolis contributing a lot to the society.
 
Rupali Khatun, 35, a housewife of Nalkhola village under Paba Upazila in Rajshahi district, has become a successful woman entrepreneur after eradicating her deplorable condition.
 
Within a gap of nine years, she is now the owner of Toha Boutique where four women are working permanently and around 300 others are getting benefits either directly or indirectly from the enterprise.
 
Simultaneously, she also has a fish farm on a 30-bigha of water body and a poultry farm with around 1,500 chicks creating jobs of around 50 people.
 
"I got a huge response from the people that inspired me to do the work vigorously," she said, adding that her monthly income is now around Taka one lakh on an average.
 
However, the success did not come overnight, as she had to face various types of constraints and hurdles to attain it.
 
Talking to BSS here on Saturday Rupali said she had to face an awful situation about four years back when her husband incurred a huge financial loss in his fertilizer and insecticide dealership business in 2011.
 
Initially, she took a 14-day institutional training on sewing and tailoring from the department of youth development in 2013. After taking loan from the department and some of her neighbours, Rupali started her sewing and tailoring business the same year.
 
Within the next two years, she was given the national youth award as a successful woman entrepreneur in 2017 in recognition of her remarkable achievement in the field of women empowerment. This year, she was also given an acknowledgement of being a successful young woman.

Not only Nasima Khatun and Rupali Khatun, many other women entrepreneurs are contributing a lot to intensifying the local economy.

DYD Deputy Director Golam Mahbub said more than 1,300 youths got jobs under the DYD's self-employment generation and poverty alleviation programme, while 1,032 others received loans worth around Taka 3.61 crore under the credit support scheme.
 
He said they have given registration to 36 youth organizations besides recognition to 91 others in the district.

Apart from this, grants of Taka 79.40 lakh were distributed among 416 youth organizations from youth welfare fund, while 50 others got Taka 4.64 lakh, he said.

He also said the upazila level training activities were strengthened to generate employment opportunities.

Many youngsters were trained in fisheries, poultry, dairy, cattle-fattening and animal husbandry as young women were trained in tailoring, sewing, block, boutique and computer, Mahbub said.

Steps were taken to make young men and women self-reliant through providing them with diversified training and financial assistance, he said.

The beneficiaries were also motivated to prevent the cultures of child marriage and dowry to ensure safe maternity and sanitation coupled with freeing the society from drug addiction and crimes like terrorism and extremism, he added.

The youth organisations were encouraged to plant trees and take care of them properly in supplementing the national efforts for environment protection, he continued.

So far, 93,066 trees were planted at the upazila and village level, he said.